The Birth of a Start Up – Built In Chicago! (Part 7) – “Preparing for Startup”

November 23, 2011 – 3:55 pm

Big post today! There is much to bring you up to date with and I’ll do so as fast as possible. We are working at a feverish pace and that’s delayed my postings. Here we go.

You’ve met the co-founders, how the idea was formed and how I came on board. So the two original cofounders took their idea and started developing. In short order, they developed a functional site and a Facebook API. Pretty impressive honestly. I was attracted to these early “raw” elements and that led to my involvement. However, once I jumped in full time I started to uncover gaps in the start up. Every start up has its gaps; the key is knowing what they are and having a plan to fix them. Let’s go over what I found and compare it to your start up.

Corporate Structure
- Set up quickly as a partnership between the two co-founders and I was added down-stream. Low to no cost to set up and obtain a FEIN tax id. Very brief document that basically says, “We’re partners and this is our percentage ownership in the company”.
- No shareholder or operating agreement established at this point. There is no detailed document explaining the agreement made between co-founders, other than the percentage of ownership.

Development
- A developer in India is hired to build the site. No contractual agreement is made with this person to be hired as a contractor. No NDA, no agreement as to ownership of the intellectual property created.
- The developer does not document anything created. The co-founder simply describes what he wants and the developer codes. No wire frames, mapping or other documentation is created.

Basics
- No business plan written.
- No accountant or legal firm involved at this point.
- No bank account established.
- One partner (the major shareholder) is a Canadian citizen and ramifications are not researched.

Co-Mingle of Funds
- All of the expense being made to date are done out of pocket. Not recorded in central location.

Many of you may say, “big deal, why are these items above gaps”? We’re doing the same thing. Well, they are more than gaps, they are problems! But problems many start ups encounter in their early days. Remember, the co-founders both work day jobs and went from idea to a functional product in six months and launched a beta site with 1400 users. Now it is time to clean things up to be prepared for growth, become a real company and seek funding. Let’s look at the gaps again, see why they are a gap and how I corrected them or at least plan to correct them.

Corporate Structure
- Set up as a partnership.
A partnership is not terrible, but it fails to insulate the founders from liability. Now that we are ready to go to market we need to legally separate ourselves from the business entity (choice is to a LLC, S or C corporation). We know our highly scalable, fast growth potential company will require funding to help us take advantage of the market opportunity. That said, investors will likely require us to be a C corporation. Any entity type with pass through income reporting (i.e. LLC, S) are cumbersome and restrictive to the professional investor. Further, having a foreign citizen as an owner excludes us from being a S corporation.

The process of incorporating as a C will address the informalities the partnership presented. Using a well researched law firm, we will take into consideration vesting, share price, number of authorized and issued shares, shareholder rights and how this all sets up for a professional investor’s expectations and requirements. My first company was an S corp, second was a LLC and now this will be a C. Each had unique requirements and reasoning for the corporate structure selected and that was dependent upon the planned journey I expected to take with each. Each time, professional advisors helped me select the right structure up front, helping me to avoid headache and expense downstream.

Development
Yieks, this is probably the biggest concern I jumped on first. Our entire company is dependent upon the IP we create. It is how we address the problem our target customer has. It is the secret sauce that investors will clamor over and position them for a successful exit. Here are the steps I have taken to protect our ID, establish a solid operational procedure, and pass the due diligence mustard when applicable.

- All developers hired as contractors are required to sign a NDA.
- All developers hired as contractors are required to sign a work for hire agreement to establish corporate authorship that all works are owned by our company. Basically, we own the code.
- Conduct all steps to demonstrate and maintain that contractors are just that contractors and not employees of the company. We do this several ways including; through the agreement created, requiring them to submit invoices to our company, not allowing them to use our email address, requesting them to establish themselves as some sort of company by which we contract with versus an individual.
- We will start to request the developer to properly document anything they create. If the developer can not comply, we will have to find a new developer.

Basics
- No business plan written.
Now many will say, “The hell with business plans, just start”. I however, need and require a business plan. We are going somewhere unknown. We need a plan to get there and we need direction. It’s like taking the time to put an address into a GPS so it can lead you to the destination. Now that we have a destination, it is time to write a business plan. It starts being created for our team internally to understand how to execute. It is then transformed into an investor deck/presentation.

- No accountant or legal firm involved at this point.
I went back to my previous accountant that I worked with for ten years. The important aspect is ensuring that our accountant has worked with and understands C corporations and firms that have solicited and received outside investor funding. The law firm had to have the same qualifications and even more emphasis placed on their understanding of IP and the high growth start up.

- No bank account established.
Once we incorporate, we can open a bank account properly. That alleviates the issue of co-mingled funds and allows shareholders to purchase stock, where proceeds are deposited. Further, it allows us to start doing business with customers. The customers we target would be hesitant to work with a Partnership and certainly one without formal banking procedures in order. We will compliment this with a monthly license for QuickBooks to record our transactions properly.

I apologize for any shortness in grammar, but I had a lot to update you on. Next week we’ll talk about development and product features and validation. Also, we are starting to go to market to generate some revenue – wish us luck. As a mentor for Future Founders, I am sharing my experience in greater detail with 12 Chicago entrepreneurs who are getting ready to create and launch their companies right now. If you want more details or have questions, give me a shout. I hope you find this helpful.

Now, back to wire frames!

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The Birth of a Start Up – Built In Chicago! (Part 6) – “The three of us”

November 14, 2011 – 8:32 am

To date, you’ve heard a bit from the two original co-founders. How they met and how the idea formed. Well now we’ll tell you how I came on board.
I was advising companies one day a week (which, actually turned into five days a week) for a grant funded program I launched called “High Growth Illinois”. One day John, co-founder #2) came in to share his pitch and desire to seek funding. He went through his slide deck and I was intrigued. His plan was in a big market that was recession proof – in fact flourishes in bad times – as well as good. His approach was novel and incorporated proprietary processes. On top of all that, his system captured data that has been lacking visibility in this market. What John presented was a web based platform to help job seekers find their ideal job, which he called Job A. Which meant at times, the job seeker would have to take a Job B in order to develop skills and experience for them to get to their Job A. This platform provided something that was missing from a job seeker’s perspective and that was a research proven best practices “process” to find a job. The platform integrated the seeker’s social graph and added a layer of gameification. I was hooked.

The original co-founder, JP, is an Assistant Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, Senior Fellow at University of Ottawa and Adjunct Professor at Louisiana State University focused on Human Resource Education, Workforce Development and social capital in the workplace. Therefore, I was really confident that the processes and unique IP poured into this plan had merit. So we quickly went from advisory to investing. I wanted in on this opportunity and discussed angel investing. John and JP were intent and preparing to seek 1.5 million, but some early seed money was needed. They had already contributed their own funds to build out the first iteration of the web site and create a Facebook application using a developer in India. However, there was still work to be done.

The discussion of funding quickly moved to talent and roles. Both John and JP felt they were not best suited to be president and asked me to fill that role. John knew me from the industry we both shared in the past and he followed the success of my first company, which I sold to a Fortune 100 in 2006. I gladly accepted the role, as I had been wanting to get back in the startup world. This seemed to be an opportunity that met my qualifications of a high growth, rapidly scalable business in a very large and global market. It was technology focused and had unique IP that addressed a problem in a targeted market.

So I accepted the position in October and we have been refining things ever since as rapidly as possible. Next week I’ll share more of the details of reviewing the business plan, finding gaps and getting focus. As a start up, nothing stays the same and for better or for worse, I’ve looked at numerous changes, tweaks and areas of clean up. We’ve done a pivot of sorts and need to move from a hastily formed partnership into a corporation. I am challenging the name of the company as well as the desired functionality surrounding our core offering. Thankfully, all three of us have an open mind and can freely exchange ideas and suggestions. We need to nail down many items rapidly so we can focus on 2.0 of development and our future road map. This will allow each of us to settle into more defined roles and focus on our go to market strategy. Again, more of those details to come next week. Now things are getting interesting!

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From Idea to Exit Winner of the USA Book News “Best Books 2011”

November 11, 2011 – 1:30 pm

Winner of the USA Book News “Best Books 2011” Award in the category of Business: Entrepreneurship and Small Business.

http://www.usabooknews.com/bestbooks2012awards/bestbooks2011results.html

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The Birth of a Start Up – Built In Chicago! (Part 5) – “Founders Meet”

November 10, 2011 – 7:52 am

The last entry I placed was from the primary founder of our start up – the guy with the idea. He’s a PhD living in Canada and he is referenced in this post provided by the second co-founder. He shares how the two met and decided to pursue the idea. Here we go…

I actually met my partner in this business over six years ago while I was the head of Merchandising and Marketing for a major national academic technology reseller. He had a non-technical pen and paper course and a board game that he had developed for instructing students/learners in how to become a more strategic networker, showing them how to set goals and objectives, determine who in their network might have the resources or knowledge (social capital), and then determine the right strategy for approaching those people for their assistance to achieve one’s goals and objectives. The process is called social capital development and was being taught in this pen and paper fashion in some Louisiana high schools with very good success, particularly in how it related to using networking for your job search and new employment. I was very intrigued by his notion and convinced that social capital development (or “purposeful social networking”) was not only a skill that could be taught, but with the growing idea of social media (at that time) and continued growth of virtual workers, it could potentially become a skill set that every student/employee could and should be taught (very similar to the way keyboarding and other computer technology skills had emerged as a key skills taught in the personal computing era). The problem was I could not convince the company I was at that time to invest in moving it from pen and paper to a more technology friendly form.

After leaving that company in mid-2010, I began working in the mobile and social learning space and together with my new employer developed the social capital development and another (21st century job search management) into online, self- directed courses. As part of the development of the courses (particularly the job search management) I learned of an online tool he was building in the areas of job search and career management and saw the early versions of what he was building to address a very strong need in our growing troubled economy – a job search/career management process for individual job seekers that covered the entire job search and long term career process – not just finding recent opportunities and applying to them. He and I formed a partnership to continue the development of this online platform and have worked together (he on the product, me on the business side) to move the project forward. We recently added a seasoned entrepreneurial executive (Jeff Weber) to join us as our President shortly after he invested in the venture. We are now finalizing our product, business plan and initial go target markets strategy….stay tuned for more to come!

Side Note from Jeff: The original concept of the online tool was focused on job coaches to use as a way to manage multiple job seeker clients. We call it the enterprise edition and that product is completely built out. But the founders realized that a larger opportunity existed if we turned over that enterprise functionality to the individual job seeker if they wanted a self directed approach. Therefore, we are now developing that functionality and user experience. We have identified two target markets to approach with solid value propositions. We are testing the validity of our revenue models to those markets by assembling a board of advisors (made up of our target customer). I had intended to be more detailed in each step of the way, but there is much going on and little time to blog. The next entry I will share how all three partners are now working together and how that dynamic has led to pivots in the business plan as we refine the right way to go to market. It has been a lot of work, but I think we are ready for prime time as beta users come on line!

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The Birth of a Start Up – Built In Chicago! (Part 4) – “What’s it about?”

October 31, 2011 – 8:41 am

So I started with some founder background, but now let’s get into what this start up is about. The following is our founder talking about how this company came to be and a bit on where it is today. Very simply he describes the market, the problem, his solution and the results of that solution.

When I first came up with the idea of creating a job search management system, I used it as an intervention in my doctoral dissertation, which was on the impact of social networks in the job search. I found that job seekers lacked an organized process to find a job. This lengthened the time to find a job, decreased motivation during the search and occasionally led to less than optimal job acceptance – settling.

Central themes of the dissertation was the importance of providing structure throughout the job search, a system to allow job seekers access to the hidden job market and to manage the process in a simple structure.

The results demonstrated that those who used the system were twice as likely to find a job and I knew then that I had to disseminate this to as many job seekers as possible.

The first thing I did was to convert my process from paper and pencil to a binder format so that job seekers could use it as a management tool kit while they looked for work. Because I was connected to employment agencies, I had a list of people who I could get in contact with to show the system to. At first I went in thinking that I would provide this for free and quickly realized that they were willing to pay for it. This was the moment that I realized that I had a business.

The start up of the business was done on a shoe string budget. I only had to produce the kits when they were required so I developed a relationship with a manufacture and was able to produce them on demand. I started a newsletter, went to conferences and made direct calls. The low tech tool kit was really catching on. It was simple and more importantly it provided real time feedback on how the job seeker was doing. It was easy to market as well since I was focusing on professional job coaches and names were easily available.

In mid 2000 I got a developer to create the first online version of the tool. However, although I was excited, the job coaches and their clients weren’t ready for an internet tool. I realized I introduced it a few years too early and needed to wait for internet capabilities and usage rates to increase.

Fast forward to today and the conditions are perfect. The platform as I envisioned has been adapted to the Internet and unfortunately we are going through one of the worse employment rates in some time. I’ve hired a developer, worked through the requirements and produced the first version of the online tool kit. I’m confident based on the reception of the low tech version that this will quickly catch with job coach professionals. Recognizing I need to assemble a team to make this work I engaged a marketing and sales professional whom I’ve worked with in the past. He in turn found a seasoned entrepreneurial executive to serve as our president. It was with this team that we realized there is no need to only target job coaches but there’s a much bigger opportunity to go directly to the job seeker.

We believe we have a global solution that can scale rapidly and create multiple revenue streams, while addressing a significant problem facing job seekers. Our goal is to help people find jobs quicker and help them manage their career toward their ideal (dream) job. With a bit more coding we’ll be hitting our first target market. I can’t wait!

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The Birth of a Start Up – Built In Chicago! (Part 3) – “Life gets in the way”

October 24, 2011 – 7:51 am

Well I committed to this blog posting of my start up experience and today is a tough entry.
I tried to address in my book the question of “how does one person take action on their idea and start a company, while another lets their idea die on the vine?” I came up with the “Entrepreneurial Formula”. In short, the formula reads, Idea + Opportunity + Situation = Entrepreneurial Activation. I won’t explain the entire formula; I’ll only focus on Situation.

Situation = Your personal situation, your professional situation and the environmental situation. In short, if the idea and opportunity align then these three situational factors in the entrepreneur’s life need to be considered. If two or more of these situational factors are negative then it will greatly hamper the entrepreneur’s likelihood of succeeding. If two or more of these situational factors are positive then it will greatly enhance the entrepreneur’s likelihood of succeeding. If situational factors are neutral they will neither have an overbearing influence positively or negatively.

I’ll be even more granular and describe only the personal situation. A person’s personal situation can include; if they are in a relationship/married, sick or healthy, in debt, experiencing legal issues, moving, attending school, caring for loved ones, etc. Although, these factors have no relevance as to the validity of the entrepreneur’s idea, they do significantly impact the entrepreneur’s ability to implement their idea.

In my own case in helping to start this new start up, I had just come off caring for my now 18 year old daughter who was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer when she was 16. She is doing fine – thank you! Regular checkups now replace chemo treatments and daily concern of her well being. We think we are in the clear and only occasionally look over our shoulder. However, last November my brother was diagnosed with an aggressive and incurable brain tumor. During this time and while his illness progressed I found myself presented with a new start up opportunity. My personal situation was negative. This was the worst time personally to start a business. My brother would be moved to a nursing home and both I and my mother (the only family members left on the Weber side) would visit daily and help with his care. His physical and mental condition would deteriorate daily.

Having to juggle your responsibilities between executing the start up and family obligations takes both a physical and mental toll. My brother passed away peacefully yesterday at the age of 48. I was a month into being officially on board with the start up. Today I will make funeral arrangements with my mother, console her and attend to his affairs. This is just part of my journey and start up story. My brother’s death actually now adds fire to my effort and desire to make my start up a success. It reinforces what I always preach and that is that life is short and unscripted. Do what you love, not what you have to do. Put your effort and talent toward accomplishing great things.

My two co-founders and I believe our start up will be a great accomplishment that will impact millions of lives positively. That’s exciting! Although, my brother will be missed, my entrepreneurial formula is now fully positive and his memory will be my fuel to continue building our start up to a successful launch.

*** You can read about my brother’s journey at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/peterweber

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The Birth of a Startup – Built in Chicago! (Part 2)

October 17, 2011 – 6:44 am

Every new business starts with an idea. In my book, “Idea to Exit”, the word idea is an acronym where the “I” stands for innovation. Innovation is the kernel that a new business is built off of. It is the substance of the business idea. My new business has two other co-founders, who started at the idea phase and I joined about six months after that point. In this posting, you’ll hear from the co-founder who generated the idea for this business. Since we are moving quickly, I’ll likely post more than once a week in order to bring events up to date rapidly for you the reader.

I’ll never forget the first day of my first job after graduating from my Masters program in 1993. My new job as a job search facilitator came to be after I realized I didn’t have a chance of landing my dream job, a professor’s position at a university. I rationalized the employer counselor position by linking the experience to making me more competitive for what I really wanted to do.

The job itself came about through a contact of mine. Basically, by chance I ran into him at a wedding of a mutual friend where I mentioned that I needed a job. He told me that the organization he was working with required employment counselors. Even though I didn’t have any experience, I could see the position as an opportunity to develop some skills that could transfer to other positions in the future.

My first day on the job, I spent most of that day preparing for the coming workshops, I couldn’t help but feel lost. Lost in the sense that I was about to facilitate a job search session which was intended to help people find work, when in fact I had no clue how to do that. I spoke with other facilitators asking for advice and for a framework I could use to guide the participants through. Advice was easy to find, the framework on the other hand was not readily available. A framework, or process, representing the best practice for job search was lacking.

This revealed two things to me. With experience on this job and learning from other counselors I could develop a consistent and proven framework to help guide job seekers through a challenging process. Further, I recognized the power of my social network in helping me to land this first job. From that first day I started working with job seekers to my present work as a human resource development program professor and senior fellow, I have been focused on the role of the job seeker and how social capital plays a vital role.

I found a problem present in a large homogeneous market of individual job counselors and coaches who help job seekers. They lacked a process. Each relied on their own tribal knowledge and most could not connect the job seeker’s social network to a search process. For that matter, I realized that individual job seekers did not have structure to support an often isolated process. Creating a job search framework (process) that allowed job seekers to follow provided the structure necessary to remain motivated throughout the search and get results faster.

The combination of providing a job search framework and the understanding that jobs do not come from traditional sources but through our connections is critical to decreasing the time it takes to find a job. Like most entrepreneurs I discovered this business idea while working within the industry. It was only by that experience that I could see the market deficiencies for my target customer. To validate my idea I used focus groups and interviewed job professionals in nonprofit employment agencies. Deeper investigation revealed little in the market solving this problem and realization that I could fill a gap in the market place became an empowering feeling.

Although the idea started out as a result of my own work situation, the need to tap into resources from my network has come into play even to bring this to the next level. The message of tapping into one’s social capital that I gave to my clients long ago applies perfectly to the journey ahead of me. Through my social network I was able to align with my co-founder, who brought start up experience and a shared passion for our new company mission. You will hear his story next.

Now back to work!

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The birth of a Start Up – Built In Chicago!

October 11, 2011 – 8:46 am

Call it a social experiment, giving back or just plain crazy, but starting today I will be sharing my new start up experience as it unfolds. I have joined a new web based start up that is focused in an extremely high growth potential industry. The company is located in Illinois and has plans to seek funding soon. We have hopes of being, yet another, shining example of Chicago’s technology start up community. The purpose of blogging our experience is to help other start up leaders watch a live case study unfold and learn from our experience. I’ll plan to provide updates every Monday.

I founded Technology Resource Center in 1995 and sold it to a Fortune 100 in 2006 – eventually leaving in 2009. For the past two years, I have provided free advisory service to dozens of entrepreneurs. I’ve helped them with everything from: strategy, business plan writing, sales, marketing and funding. Most recently I launched High Growth Illinois out of the SBDC to provide free advisory service to companies that had the potential for high growth. I am a regular speaker on the topic of entrepreneurism, I am an adjunct faculty teaching entrepreneurism and I wrote a book on the topic, From Idea to Exit: The Entrepreneurial Journey. I’ve also volunteered to help youth understand entrepreneurism by way of Future Founders and The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

Now it is time to do something really exciting – start a company again and let the entrepreneurial community ride along! I’ve met two partners who have created a platform that is relevant and timely and provides a solution to a big problem. Now rather than create this start up behind closed doors, I thought it would be really cool to share our experience with other entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial dreamers. To extend my mentoring and teaching, I plan to blog about the growth of our start up from inception to funding and beyond.

I will announce the company in the near future. It is built around being social and the concept of social capital. Our company will teach the principles of social capital, provide a tool for individuals to utilize their own social capital in a way that benefits our users and stakeholders. Social capital involves what you “give” in addition to what you “get”. Our company and culture promotes social capital and what better way to do so than by demonstrating it at our very onset.

I encourage you to follow our journey. I encourage you to give the gift of social capital by sharing our blog postings with those in your network that can benefit from our experience. And finally, I’ll ask for your support when we launch, so that Chicago can raise another tech start up high as proof that Chicago is the place to be to start a technology business in the new century!

Enjoy your Journey,

Jeff Weber

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Do you remember the, “Made in the USA” promotion?

September 16, 2011 – 9:28 am

Back in the 80′s there was a big marketing campaign encouraging Americans to buy American made products under the “Made in the USA” promotional brand. I think a great portion of that effort was funded by unions – obviously to support and maintain union jobs. The only flaw in that promotion is that it was focused on patriotism. It tried to pull on our nationalistic sense of duty to support Made in the USA. Hey, I’m all for that, but that is not necessarily a consumer value proposition.

What is a consumer value proposition related to Made in the USA? Quality, Safety and Trust. Today I’m practically forced to buy products from China because they are everywhere. What I hate is not knowing how much lead is in that product or other toxins that seemed to escape our nation’s protective measures. I also want quality. Stuff simply does not last very long and it’s because it was made cheap.

What does American manufacturing do well? American manufacturing probably has the highest quality in the world. We can trust American made products that they are safe and reliable. Those are huge value propositions that sell. The argument is that American products can’t compete based on price. I believe they can. There is a world market that will pay more for a high quality product that the consumer trusts. That’s American manufacturing’s niche and we need to market to that niche. The trick is that American manufacturing needs to sell to that value proposition. To date, we’ve been silent about these consumer benefits.

Please take the time to read this very spot on article by Todd Lipscomb. Better yet, if you like what you hear, get his book. Better yet, if you like what you hear buy American made products from his site.

The government will not bring jobs back – so stop holding your breath on that one. Jobs will come from companies that grow and subsequently hire. They can’t grow if they don’t sell in the world economy. Government handouts (i.e. welfare, unemployment, food stamps, etc.) are perpetuating the problem. Entrepreneurism started in this country out of necessity. Immigrants hit our shores with zero assistance and nothing but their own desire, effort and ingenuity to get going. They took manual jobs, they did things below their skill set and then they started companies, and they made it happen. Do people need assistance – sure? But look at Greece to see what happens when government assistance turns into government interference.

The tough love is that sometimes we have to take steps backward to move forward. Sometimes we have to cut off the “dole” to force action. It is said that 52.6 percent of Americans – now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. If that number is true – that should scare the heck out of all of us. How can an economy continue with that expense on it’s shoulders?

Sometimes we have to accept that some people are not ready or willing for change and they will be left behind. Is that cold? I think that’s historical and representative of how things evolve. It’s especially true in business. Just read up on creative destructionism to see why it is a good thing. We need to stay hungry to progress. Right now, I don’t think our population is very hungry. I think we find it easier to hold our hand out and wait on someone’s assistance. We as a people and as individuals will be the only ones responsible for our future. Why would you want to entrust that to anyone but yourself.

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Does Chicago’s Entrepreneurial Scene Play “Follow the Leader?”

August 19, 2011 – 7:06 am

If you have not noticed, Chicago is increasingly becoming recognized as an entrepreneurial minded city. You might say, “Hasn’t it always been?” Well, yes. Many industries flourish in the greater Chicagoland area and have done so since our great city’s inception. The piece I’m referring to is less visible to most of our citizens and businesses for that matter. I’m talking about the entrepreneurial support structure that has emerged – or matured over the past two years.

A multitude of organizations and individuals in Chicago have poured their passion and effort into making Chicago an innovative leader that attracts start ups who stay and grow in Chicago. These include but are not limited to: The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, TiE Midwest, Excelerate Labs, Hyde Park Angels, Wildcat Angels, The Big Idea Forum, Funding Feeding Frenzy, Built in Chicago, Illinois Technology Association and my new effort High Growth Illinois. Their leader’s mindset has spread and more and more join this allegiance every day to foster, mentor and fund tomorrow’s leaders. Once fragmented and working independently, these groups and individuals are starting to find ways to work together and combine resources to truly make a difference. A culminating example was the recent Chicago Tech Week, the anticipated, Business Innovation Conference, SocialDevCamp Chicago, Healthbox and Chicago Ideas Week in October.

However, as fast as we move forward as a supporting force of entrepreneurism, we still find ourselves making the same mistakes we counsel our young start ups about and that would be “following the leader”. At least, I’ll say the perceived leader. Entrepreneurs are doing some great things in Chicago as are the support organizations mentioned above. Yet, there continues to be a comparison to our West Coast counterparts who seem to launch more businesses and provide more funding for those businesses than what is recorded in Chicago. Is the West Coast better than the Midwest? Not really, they’re just different and we need to remember that.

In order for our efforts as entrepreneurial support agencies to be successful, we need to be different, and we need to align with the requirements of the entrepreneurs we work to serve. Sure the West Coast can crank out hundreds – no thousands – of technology related ventures, but I’d like to know how many of them actually succeed and create jobs. The Midwest, more specifically Chicago, is different, and that is the essence of entrepreneurism – differentiation. We need to find and define what makes our entrepreneurs, our region, our industries different and unique and serve them in ways that best reflect their needs.

What makes Chicago different? For one, we are leaders in boot strapping as a means to launch our businesses, yet there are few, if any, resources available to help in those efforts. Chicago and the surrounding region house a high percentage of Fortune 500 companies, yet we don’t align them well to innovative start ups in the supply chain. Our businesses tend to focus on B2B models, whereas the West Coast dominate the B2C play. The B2C play still attracts investors to revenue void entities who can capture eye balls and registered users better than profitability. Let’s face it, in Chicago we’re still a bit old school in that we like to see black ink vs. red.

We don’t have to follow the West Coast formula exclusively. Yes, they’ve done a great job, and we can copy and improve where it make sense. But let’s challenge ourselves to be disruptive and innovative by listening to what our customers – our entrepreneurs – need to be successful. Do we need more Angry Birds or do we need to find ways to bring to market the types of technologies tied up in the leading research universities that surround our city? Is funding the benchmark to measure or are we better served following customer and supplier introductions made by mentoring institutions and well connected individuals?

Yes, funding is vital to leap on opportunities. Yes, the West Coast is a leader, and we can learn from them in many respects. My point is that we have a really good thing going in Chicago. We have a very broad base of industry and the start ups that emerge daily are as diverse as our population. The cities with fast growing entrepreneurial activity, such as Austin, New Orleans and Pittsburgh, are booming because they are focused internally on their own uniqueness. As a cohesive group with common goals, let’s remember our own entrepreneurial roots and focus less on the other guy and more on how others will want to copy us.

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